


The Anti-Hero and How It Impacts and Contributes to Contemporary Society

by Prince_Of_The_Night



Category: Original Work
Genre: Essay, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:02:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16261919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prince_Of_The_Night/pseuds/Prince_Of_The_Night
Summary: An essay I wrote a while ago debating anti-heroes and heroes, and our need for them in modern society.





	The Anti-Hero and How It Impacts and Contributes to Contemporary Society

 

The Anti-Hero and How It Impacts and Contributes to Contemporary Society

* * *

In all of the estimated 200,000 years of human existence, things that are no longer of function or have need are forgotten or bygone - this is the base of Darwin’s theory of evolution and survival of the fittest (alternatively, the theory of natural selection). Thus, the persistent hero and villain dynamics leads to the plausibility of the belief that there is still a psychological and sociological need for the heroes, anti-heroes, and villains, even as humanity advances at an exponential rate. In today’s constantly changing society, the imperfect anti-hero has a larger benefit to people than that of the traditional and morally-upright hero. The anti-hero mainly benefits people in three large ways: self-association and sympathy, moral belief and understanding, and prevalence in the contemporary world.

The first, and perhaps one of the more vital, aspects to which the anti-hero has a benefit for society is in self-association ( and consequently, understanding) and sympathy. In Norse mythology, Loki was known for being sly and charming, for being a trickster who often got others caught in  in trouble he caused - as one would expect from the god of mischief and chaos. In spite of this, Loki is a basic and long-lived example of an anti-hero. One can see this in the story of _The Master Builder_ . While in need of a wall for protection, the gods were approached by a mysterious man who claimed that he could build the wall in three seasons, but for a hefty price - Freya’s hand in marriage, the sun, and the moon. All the gods, save for Loki, disagreed. “ ‘You are all overlooking,’ he said, ‘that what this stranger is proposing to do is, to make no bones about it, quite impossible. There is no-one alive who could build a wall so high and so thick as the one he described and have it finished in 18 months. Not a giant or god could do this, let alone a mortal man. I would stake my skin on it’ ” (Gaiman 74). Loki, though he lies and cheats and runs his own agenda, is still a model of an anti-hero for this very basic reason: he has a personal moral code to which he adheres, and though his means to an end are unconventional and morally grey, he still has a relatively noble goal that he strives to achieve. With many anti-heroes, most people are able to relate through the common themes of self-association and sympathy towards a character. Self-association is a self-explanatory concept: “I can relate to this character because they are flawed and imperfect, and so am I.” Returning to Loki, one can see he fits this concept well. In _The Master Builder_ (as well as in many other myths) Loki is overconfident in his wit and abilities. Which ultimately almost causes the gods to lose Freya. Many people in our world fall victim to this thinking, too. One might assume that they have no need to study because they’re overconfident or arrogant in their skills and fail a test because of this. However, self-association also bleeds into sympathy - if people can understand where a character is coming from, and even if that person doesn’t agree with actions taken, then they can still empathize and sympathize through relatability.

Following this vein, moral belief and understanding (that is to say, redemption and justice) are also prevalent in the ‘anti-hero over hero’ theory. In _The Odyssey_ , Odysseus endangers his whole crew and lengths his time from home when he cries “Cyclops, … Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye; Laertes’ son, whose home’s Ithaca!” (Homer 874) and causes Polyphemus to call down Poseidon's wrath on him. However, he doesn’t make this mistake again, nor one like when Odysseus’ crew let out the winds because he refused to explain the situation. He learns from the get-go, from that first mistake, and that makes him unrelatable to a majority of people. A second thing that falls into why Odysseus, as a traditional hero, does not have a large benefit is in the fact that there is no true redemption arc in his concern. One of the larger parts that comes with the modern popularity of anti-hero is the concept of redemption, change and growth. One of the more common of the three ‘endings’ to an anti-hero is the change of perception and turn to more heroic means. Though cliched, it is well-loved and preferred. One reason to how this particular ending is impactful deals with the idea of _personal_ redemption and growth. It’s the viewpoint that if, as flawed humans, one mess up morally, legally, or otherwise they too can deem themselves through effort and application, much like that of the anti-heroes. People see redeemed anti-heroes in everyday life - Severus Snape from the _Harry Potter_ series, Deadpool, Jack Harkness from _Torchwood_ and _Doctor Who_ , the list goes on and on. The second part to this benefit lies in justice. Affirmation of someone’s sense of justice through justice being executed on a morally ambiguous or grey character can be very important. It reinforces someone’s concept or view of justice, or it encourages them to pursue justice, whether through acting in part of the judicial system or in the intimate decision with one’s self to not stray from what people are told is right by law and authority figures. (Characters like the _Marvel Cinematic Universe’s_ incarnation of Loki, and others such as.)

And thus, it leads into the final important point an anti-hero’s contribution to contemporary society: prevalence. The anti-hero is quickly becoming more loved and more and more of these kinds of characters are popping up. And it hasn’t only been for a while. “In the mid-1940s, U.S. soldiers came back from WWII after witnessing unspeakable atrocities. Then of course there was the Korean War, the Vietnam War, student protests, two Kennedy assassinations, the Civil Rights movement,Watergate, the Cold War, and the Carter-era oil crisis, among others. Not only did we see some of the worst acts in human history committed during this time, but many of our fathers and mothers experienced it firsthand and took part in their own questionable behavior. Endless cultural progress was Modernism’s empty promise, and it resulted in a deep-seated mistrust of the establishment, including it’s boundaries between right and wrong. The world included far more shades of gray, and the characters on the silver screen needed to reflect a broader view of morally acceptable behavior. Traditional heroes were just far too unrelatable” (Michael). Fiction has given people the long list of anti-heroes they crave - Sherlock Holmes, Captain Jack Sparrow, Veronica Mars, the Winchesters, Batman, Magneto, the Protagonist[s] (the _Persona_ and _Shin Megami Tensei_ series), and a slew of other characters. As such, anti-heroes are a prevalent part of modern culture that cannot be ignored.

In conclusion, during today’s fluctuating society, the traditional and morally-upright hero has less of an impact and benefit than that of the imperfect anti-hero. These advantages are found in three basic and paramount ways: prevalence in the contemporary world, moral belief and understand, and self-association and sympathy. With the ubiquity of anti-heroes in the current world, it definitely seems like they are here to stay - at least, for a while.

* * *

 

Works Cited

Gaiman, Neil. The Master Builder. _Norse Mythology_ , by Gaiman, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2017.

Homer. “The Odyssey”. Translated by Robert Fitzgerald. _Literature: Timeless Voices, Timeless Themes. Gold._ Edited by Ellen Howler, Pam Cardiff, Megan Chill, et. al, Prentice Hall, 1999, pp. 860-916.

Michael, Jonathan. “The Rise of the Anti-Hero.” _RELEVANT Magazine_ , 7 June 2017, relevantmagazine.com/culture/tv/rise-anti-hero.

_Odyssey, The_. Directed by Andrei Koncolovsky, performances by Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Geraldine Chaplin, Jeroen Krabbe, Christopher Lee, Irene Papas, Bernadette Peters, Eric Roberts, Isabella Rosselini, and Vanessa Williams, Hallmark Entertainment, 2001.


End file.
